Lost Nowhere: A journey of self-discovery in a fantasy world

by Phoebe Garnsworthy

  “Can you not change the outcome with thoughts alone?” Lily appealed with distress, recalling the lessons from Jacques and Karisma.

  “Yes, but that concept it much more complex than you are allowing yourself to understand. And until you realize what that means, it will continue to happen until the message is transparent.”

  Lily stood and stared at the pieces of glass scattered on the floor. The longer she looked at it, the more they changed. The concrete floor began to disappear, and the glass had floated up around the two, spinning ever so slowly.

  “And so the glass will always break?”

  “In your world, yes.”

  “And in yours?”

  “You and I do not see things the same,” Violetta stated as she opened the palm of her hand, and the two watched in silence as the pieces of broken glass moved in a reverse motion to form the crystal ball once more. Lily felt herself grow frustrated under such riddles.

  “So did the glass break or did it not?” she asked impatiently, placing one of her hands on her hips and the other out in front, as though she was ready to receive the information in a tangible state.

  “Both,” Violetta replied casually, folding her fingers around the glass ball and shrinking it in size until it was no longer visible.

  “How can both have happened?” Lily asked, almost ready to dismiss the empress as being almighty powerful.

  “In your world, the glass broke.” She said, as the room filled up with glistening particles of glass once again. The floor turned into a hard shell of concrete and the edges of the room became defined inside a square. “But in my world,” the room emptied back into empty white space as she continued, “it did not.”

  Lily looked around confused and felt her ears start to itch again. She tugged on them lightly, as she stared to the blank canvas. She knew that she was seeing the situation through the eyes of the empress.

  “How can it be both here and there in the same moment?”

  “You and I do not see things the same way,” Violetta said as she held Lily’s hands once more and stared into her eyes.

  Lily blinked. The landscape of empty space changed once again, and the two were standing on the shores of Neveah. Rocks and spheres of amethyst crystals lined the shores of the white mountainside. The sky was a pale white, and only in the shadows was the edge of the mountain able to be seen.

  “We do not see things the same?” Lily asked, staring at the marvelous landscape and wondering whether in fact Violetta was seeing the ocean, the pebbles, and the trees in the same light.

  “No, we do not,” she replied, not taking her eyes off Lily.

  “And anyone else?” Lily looked around. There was no one else around them, nothing but pure landscape.

  “In someone else’s world, the glass sphere does not exist.”

  And with those last words from Violetta, she disappeared into nothing. Lily was standing alone. Completely alone, on the shores of Neveah, with only the purple pebbles, and endless white mountains around her. She was so alone that Lily began to question herself as to whether Violetta even visited her in the first place, where did she come from? Or was she having a conversation with herself?

  She stood on her own for several minutes trying to process what had happened. But she wanted her friend to help, she wanted to tell Crysanthe, and ask her what she thought. And then she remembered what had happened. For a brief moment, she had forgotten. Would it be possible to forget about her forever? No.

  She looked to the ocean. There was something magical about this land; she knew that for certain. It was unlike any other beach that she had stepped on in Sa Neo. And the advice of Violetta, as profound as it was, was not completely clear to her. She wasn’t ready to give up and she knew she needed to seek outside help once more. So, she closed her eyes and held her garnet crystal tightly between her hands. She felt herself float up into a patchwork pool of rainbow colors where she swam leisurely through. They continuously connected, molding one into the other. Slowly one color overtook them all and she felt herself float upwards. Pushing through her body, the mind drifting within an unlimited compass.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE CRYSTAL BALL FOUNTAIN

  Lily opened her eyes wearily to the land of garnet, but the forestation that once lay so heavenly lush had now dried up. There was no visible abundance of green leaves or merry flowers, the land felt empty and frail with life. She hoped for Jacques and the pyramid to be there as she ran along the path. It only just dawned on her that if the pyramid and Jacques weren’t there as she walked up, how would she ever get home? She didn’t worry about that idea too much, though, as she had bigger problems on her mind. Were Crysanthe and Zavier still alive? Were they mad at her? The same questions rolled over and over in her mind as she bustled along the pathway ahead.

  High up on the hill above she could see the tipping point of Jacques’ pyramid. The sight of hope nuzzled quickly in her tummy like nourishing warm breastmilk, and she moved even faster toward the house. She walked hurriedly straight through the sphere door, disturbing Jacques in a peaceful meditative state.

  “Oh Jacques!” Lily sobbed as she rushed into him, tears flowing uncontrollably. “I have thought of you all through my travels and now I have come to you, desperately seeking your help.”

  Jacques opened his eyes slowly, feeling the heavy distressed energy from Lily, stronger than the words that she spoke.

  “Li-ly, calm yourself my dear. Here, here, don’t cry,” Jacques cooed, ushering Lily to sit down on a giant feathered pillow. “Tell me sweet Li-ly, whatever could be wrong?”

  The distraught Lily sat down in the pyramid home that she first walked into, however so long ago. She felt immediately safe, undisturbed from the outside affairs. But the idea of abandoning her friends now was inconceivable; there was no turning back, she needed to keep moving forward.

  “The mermaids… I… I… Oh Jacques…” Lily wailed. The truth of what she had done now shone through clearly in her mind.

  “It’s okay, my dear. Take a deep breath,” Jacques said. He held Lily’s hand up to his chest and inhaled deeply, allowing the soft drum of his heartbeat to calm her nerves. “Now my dear, let’s start from the beginning.”

  He handed Lily a tissue made of soft spider web silk, and she patted it under her eyes delicately, letting the teardrops suckle to the web like morning dew.

  “It exists. Everything that you think is possible exists!” she announced with exhaustion, allowing herself to rest immediately as though now she had passed on the baton.

  Jacques’ eyes widened with excitement and his fat lips pursed over his teeth as he opened his mouth wide.

  “And the mermaids?” He asked, jumping up and down, clapping his hands gleefully while a series of miraculous myths he was told as a boy fluttered through his head.

  Lily nodded with exhaustion, the flooding tears ceasing momentarily.

  “I knew it! Oh this is so fantastic to finally know Lily! Thousands of years of speculation and I am the one to find out that they exist! Meeting you has meant more to me than my entire 587 years of living!”

  Jacques wrapped his arms around Lily in a tight embrace, but hearing his praises just made her hate herself even more. She couldn’t understand how life could be so cruel. How was it that she could have done such a horrid thing to her true friends? Everyone was living so peacefully and happily, so kind and lovingly, and yet she had to ruin it.

  “But Jacques, I did wrong. I told Jade they exist, and she was furious.” Lily explained between blubbering sobs, the turmoil of events that led her up to this point. She was expecting Jacques to turn away in horror but he made no such movement, and instead, he stood right next to her, holding her hand and listening to her speak with no interruptions.

  “Why do I relive the story in my head when it does nothing but hurt me?” she asked as she continued to cry. Lily was unable to stop replaying the moment that she fought back to Jade, the moment that started it all.

&nb
sp; “It is only a thought in your mind, do not give it power. Let it go. Let it go,” he said. He patted her hand abruptly, as though he was knocking the thought right out of her body. Lily didn’t budge and she thought back to Crysanthe and Zavier, trapped, helplessly because of her. And the request sang through to Lily, telling her to ask Jacques for a quick ending to their time in Sa Neo.

  “Crysanthe and Zavier desire a potion that will make them die.” Lily spoke the words automatically with no emotion, as though the words did not belong to her. And she watched unfazed as Jacques’ face turned into shock at such a vulgar request.

  “A potion to make them die?” He responded ensuring that he heard the words correctly. “I would not know how to create such a thing.”

  Although Lily didn’t want to kill the mermaids, she had no other plan of how to proceed. She questioned her power against the sorcerer and now only wanted to please the mermaids. The mermaids’ fearless nature of change had started to settle within Lily, and she was beginning to believe that death was a natural evolution of the soul. No longer did she feel the need to mourn her loss to disrupt her life, she had accepted her fate and was eager to allow life to flow. But alas, upon finding that the potion was unavailable she immediately wanted it more, her spoiled child streak shining through.

  “But you have to!” she pleaded desperately. “I have no other choice! What else can I do?”

  “You have the power within you,” Jacques said and stroked Lily’s forehead. Still holding her hand, he looked deep into her eyes, as though he too were looking for the answers inside her mind.

  She twitched uncomfortably and mocked his response. “You sound like Violetta.”

  “She said that?” Jacques replied smiling with dumbfounded pleasure that he had echoed words of the master.

  “She said that no outside force would do any good.” Lily thought back to the discussion with Violetta, still trying to grasp if such a conversation actually existed. But the memory of what had been discussed was blurry in her mind. She could only remember the way that she felt around the empress—such a feeling of security and contentment.

  “You are stronger than you think Lily. You are wiser, and smarter than you care to let on,” Jacques nudged, helping her stand upright. “I believe in you.”

  Lily held Jacques’ hands as she stood and used his vibrant energy to help her think. She closed her eyes to attempt a foreseeable outcome in her vision. But her mind was too cluttered with emotion, and her voice inside was flooded with tears.

  “Be clear with your intentions,” Jacques whispered.

  She peeked at his eyes. They gleamed through as shining crescent moons, radiating hidden wisdom and excitement.

  “You once said I was a gift to this world Jacques. Some gift! I am destroying everything that I touch.”

  Jacques squeezed Lily’s hand tightly, and pulled her arm to focus.

  “It’s your world Lily, don’t you see that yet? And you are the gift. Only when you see both love and conflict under the same umbrella will you be at peace. They equally demand your respect.”

  Lily rolled her eyes with dismay and tugged on her ouroboros necklace, tapping the pearl eyes with her fingertips. She found herself stroking the piece of jewelry around her neck quite regularly since she had been troubled. It seemed to exude some form of comfort from the repetition.

  He handed her some crystal stones, one for protection, one for intuition and the last one for courage. And then he told her that it was time for her to go.

  “To go back home?” Lily asked, terrified that his response was to be yes.

  And it was only now that she realized how fond she had grown of not just Crysanthe, but of the land too. She still felt there was more to learn, seek, and experience. She wanted Crysanthe and Zavier to get out so she could go back under water with them again, and dance to Neo.

  “You can go home if you want to. You can do anything you like Lily. This world, this life here, it only exists if you choose for it to.”

  The definition of the room around Lily wobbled. The lines blurred as though her vision was fading and she squinted her eyes to keep the memory vibrant.

  “But my friendship with Crysanthe, it’s real isn’t it?” she asked, looking concerned to a smiling Jacques, who was standing next to the sphere door.

  “Come with me,” Jacques said as he held Lily’s hands tightly in his own and walked her to the edge of his house where it overlooked the seaside. It was the same point of view that they had spent on her first day when she had arrived, and he was pushing her to leave, to go explore. This time, there was no such push. She felt comfortable standing in the exact moment that she was standing. She held both his hands in her hands and looked into his eyes, feeling the depths of his essence oozing pure loving energy.

  “If she dies, I don’t know what will happen to me.” She felt a burn in her chest, pressure from the outside collapsing on her lungs at the sheer thought of her best friend being taken away from her so quickly.

  Jacques remained calm, staring at Lily with a straight face.

  “You will continue living and that is all. Another change in your life will take a turn. But that’s not for you to say whether it is bad or good. It is just change. It is inevitable.” His eyes darted back and forth from left to right as he spoke calmly. “You can choose your attitude as to how it will affect you emotionally.”

  The knowledge, advice, and wisdom that he delivered in sharp sentences did not scare her. It was truth, bold and heartfelt. And she admired her fellow peer for speaking so honestly to her.

  “If I left this world, what would happen to everyone though?” She asked cautiously, knowing the answer had the ability to destroy.

  “If you did not see us?” Jacques asked, ensuring she wanted the answer he was ready to provide.

  Lily nodded in response.

  “And you walked away right now?” His eyes began to light up mischievously, as though he could see something from afar that provided him great pleasure.

  “Yes.” Lily’s eyes pleaded with kindness. She knew the answer clearly, yet the glass was misty, she needed to wipe the dust off in order to see it properly.

  Jacques looked back to Lily and ignored the outside path, his pupils zoomed completely into the back of her mind. He opened his mouth, hovering carefully before he spoke, ensuring she was listening to his every breath.

  “Everything would be as it always was.” Jacques turned to face the horizon, and Lily mirrored his actions. Together, they stood silently, both looking out from the top point of the hill, onto the valley below. The soft noises of wilderness surrounded the two. And as she looked to the green bushes of the treetops, of perfect leaves and flowers, they moved ever so gently. She could feel the energy of liveliness all around her moving constantly. Everything would be as it always was, she heard again in her ears. She breathed deeply, inhaling the air around, with its vibrant aroma of life massaging the senses of her nose. She closed her eyes, breathing in the moment of clarity. She looked to Jacques, but he was not there. The pyramid, once again, had disappeared, and in its place lay a beautiful garden full of flowers. Lily picked a flower and held it in her hand.

  The outer petals of the flower curved inwards, and were spread out graciously. Touching each other close to the center and thinning out to the edge to a diamond-like point. The fingertips of the petals merged like stained water paints, a soft pink mixed with a deep magenta hue. And the second layer of petals pointed out like whimsical eyelashes, colored in a pretty indigo blue. standing soft and thin as if protecting the center point as their purpose. And the heart of the flower was the most unusual of them all, with bright yellow sticks holding a fluffy pollen globe on their head. The scent was intoxicatingly sweet, overpowering, and addictive. Lily smelled and stared at the flower, longing to dive right through the middle and disappear forever. She gently caressed the textured petals with the tips of her fingers. She was unable to look away, deep in thought; she continued to stare, allowing the
beauty to take control of her mind.

  “Do you realize the beauty of this flower that which you hold in your hand is created only in your mind?” Jacques appeared once more, standing by her side. “It is a reflection of your world. You are in love with your own reflection of the universe,” he continued.

  “How can I create this flower when I have never seen it before?” Lily asked.

  “Because you are the creator, anything is possible.”

  “I created this flower?” Lily pulled off the petals and crumbled them in her hand, smelling the sweet perfume as it absorbed into the pores of her skin.

  “You are continuously creating every second. There is endless potential inside of you.”

  “I’m not sure I quite understand.” She held the flower to Jacques, allowing him to inhale the overpowering perfume as well. Instead, he looked to her palm. The love line bled fiercely. As though it had been carved by a razor blade only moments ago. “You understand more than you realize.” He smiled, and pushed her along the path gently, waving goodbye.

  She accepted his dismissal, and waved farewell. She held the flower in her hand and walked toward the ocean once more, she was no longer crying. Instead, the red slithers of light from the sky reflected directly into her eyes, and a streak of madness with anticipation of excitement trickled through her blood; and as a wolf hunts through the night in order to find prey, she too had the same thirst of hunger, this time, to see what else this world was going to show her. This time, she would welcome in the fear and turn it swiftly into love, for she knew that love killed all. It consumed hatred and fear, the way the light demolishes the dark, never to be seen again.

  She was ready to face Jade, she had the strength to witness how this adventure was going to play out. She was willing to embrace the change. Lily sat cross-legged on the garnet pebble beach, and closed her eyes. Her mind cleared effortlessly, so quickly and steady that it made her wonder as to whether she really was consumed with such emotional turmoil from the events. Am I numb to the pain? she thought. Or has my mind accepted the fact that I cannot change this? She pondered the various possible outcomes and ultimately came to the same conclusion every time—to surrender. It is beyond your control, she heard a voice inside her head that sounded like Violetta. Was she communicating from afar? Or has she been with me the whole time? The question after question seemed to distort Lily more and more. She had to quickly take focus. Clearing her mind, she held the crystals from Tehar and tedimetaed herself back to Jade, holding the sphere of protection around her body.